_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ =A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS IN AFRICA.= Nine Years amongst the Game of the Far Interior of South Africa. By FREDERICK COURTENEY SELOUS. Illustrated. Fifth Edition. 7s. 6d. net. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. =TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE IN SOUTH-EAST AFRICA.= With numerous Illustrations and Map. 25s. net. =SUNSHINE AND STORM IN RHODESIA.= Fully Illustrated, with Map. 10s. 6d. net. ROWLAND WARD, LTD., LONDON. AFRICAN NATURE NOTES AND REMINISCENCES [Illustration] MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO [Illustration: "UNFORTUNATELY, ONE OF THESE TERRIFIC BLOWS, VERY PROBABLY THE FIRST AIMED AT THE LEOPARD WHICH SEIZED THE CALF, HAD STRUCK THE LITTLE CREATURE ON THE LOINS AND BROKEN ITS BACK."--_Page 220._] African Nature Notes and Reminiscences BY FREDERICK COURTENEY SELOUS, F.Z.S. GOLD MEDALLIST OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY WITH A "FOREWORD" BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY E. CALDWELL MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1908 TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED NOT ONLY BECAUSE IT WAS ENTIRELY OWING TO HIS INSPIRATION AND KINDLY ENCOURAGEMENT THAT IT WAS EVER WRITTEN BUT ALSO BECAUSE BOTH IN HIS PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LIFE HE HAS ALWAYS WON THE SINCERE ADMIRATION AND ESTEEM OF THE AUTHOR PREFACE The chapters comprised in the present volume were written at various times during the last ten years. Some of them have already appeared in print in the pages of the _Field, Land and Water_, and other papers, but the majority have remained in manuscript until now. The greatest part of the matter in the chapters on the "Lion" was written some years ago, and was intended to be the commencement of a book dealing entirely with the life-history of South African mammals. When, however, I was asked by Mr. Rowland Ward to contribute to a book he was about to publish on the _Great and Small Game of Africa_, all the articles in which would be written by men who had personally studied the habits of the animals they described, I gave up the idea of myself writing a less comprehensive work on similar lines, and became one of the chief contributors to Mr. Ward's large and valuable publication. My manuscript notes on the lion and some other animals were then consigned to the seclusion of a drawer in my study, from which they would probably never again have emerged had it not been for the fact that during the autumn of 1905 I had the honour to be the guest of President Roosevelt at the White House in Washington.